New York Shakespeare Festival: related television coverage (video recording) "The death of Garcia Lorca" directed by Carlos Gimenez, produced by Joseph Papp, New York, June 29, 1988

 

 

"The Death of Garcia Lorca" by J.A. Rial, producer Joseph Papp, director Carlos Giménez: credits, New York, 1988

                  Source: Lucille Lortel Theatre
 

Review/Theater; A Writer's Persecution, By Walter Goodman, The New York Times, June 29, 1988

The title is the only straightforward thing about ''The Death of Garcia Lorca.'' The play by the Venezuelan writer Jose Antonio Rial is a paella of posturings and polemics, thickened with scenes that manage to be obscure and obvious at the same time.

Federico Garcia Lorca, a poet and playwright who was murdered by the Fascists during the Spanish Civil War, is presented here as a garrulous flower child who learns too late that the supporters of Franco are bad guys. He says, ''What does poetry matter on a planet of murderers?'' Bernard White, who may remind you a little of Gene Wilder trying to be boyish, suffers a lot, but so would you if you had to utter lines like, ''Our poems are wet paper if they cannot withstand all the rage of history.'' As somebody says after a while, ''This guy's losing it.'' To add to his ordeal, Mr. White is obliged to lie on a bed onstage during the entire 15-minute intermission.

Julio Marzan's translation specializes in fancy talk. ''I hear him breathing, quietly swallowing his hate in his saliva,'' says a housewife. Federico's aunt inquires, ''Are you sinking us into the shadow of the abyss?'' A maid says: ''I curse the milk you drunk from your mother. It should have turned to poison in your guts.'' The maid is talking to one of Franco's followers. You can tell these fellows by their uniforms and their tendency to holler threats like ''I say death to all the intellectuals!'' and ''Are you going to tell!'' They all have loud voices.

In accord with the customs of the Public Theater, where the play opened last night as part of the First New York International Festival of the Arts, the lines are delivered in diverse accents. Several of the performers in the large cast are reported to be favorites back home in Venezuela, Paraguay and Cuba. They are not given much of an opportunity here to show us why. Also, their heavily accented English, though understandable if you strain a little, has its odd side. You may find yourself wondering, for example, how it is that neither Federico nor his mother has the slightest accent, while English is at best a second or third language for his sister. Other characters, such as a woman who plays the piano and sings behind a screen that sometimes separates past from present, real from imagined, seem to have strayed down from Lincoln Center.

Among the less hysterical performances, Gonzalo Madurga, as a plausibly self-serving hanger-on of the Falange, delivers a relatively coherent though anticlimactic account of how Lorca was taken into captivity, and Mario Arrambide draws sympathy in the less coherent role of a condemned school teacher. The director, Carlos Gimenez, who also did the melodramatic lighting, goes in for stagy effects; when the characters aren't spouting off, they assume poses. Some of the effects work, such as the first-scene tableau of eight Spanish artists, got up in Rafael Reyeros's sporty fashions of the 1930's, posing for a final photograph before war and ideology separate them forever. Mr. Reyeros also designed the elegant set. It deserves better use.

THE DEATH OF GARCIA LORCA, by Jose Antonio Rial; translated by Julio Marzan; directed by Carlos Gimenez; scenery and costume design by Rafael Reyeros; lighting design by Mr. Gimenez; associate producer, Jason Steven Cohen. Presented by Joseph Papp. At the Public/Anspacher Theater, 425 Lafayette Street. WITH: Mario Arrambide, Sara Erde, Kevin Gray, Gonzalo Madurga, Joseph Palmas, Jorge Luis Ramos, Emilio Del Pozo, Cesar Evora, Margarita Irun, Roberto Medina, Tim Perez, Judith Roberts, Bernard White, Herbert Duarte, Patricia Falkenhain, Maria Cristina Lozada, Rene Moreno, Lionel Pina and Al Rodriguez. 

Transcripción y Fuente: Gabriel Flores

Left to rigth: María Cristina Lozada,  Carlos Giménez, Margarita Irún,
César Evora

"Que se diga siempre la verdad. Si triunfamos que se diga. Si pusimos la cagada y nos pitaron, que se diga", Carlos Giménez, entrevista de  Hugo Colmenares.

Esta crítica es malísima y la publicamos para que la gente conozca las adversidades contra las cuales tuvo que luchar Carlos toda su vida: la incomprensión fue una de ellas (la envidia y el odio, otras). Pero él nunca desistió de su creación, de arriesgarse e innovar,  y cuando tuvo éxitos resonantes y con críticas maravillosas,  que fueron muchísimos, Carlos no se aferró a esa fórmula y en su siguiente montaje proponía una creación completamente diferente, audaz, novedosa.

THE DEATH OF GARCIA LORCA by José Antonio Rial. Directed and Lighting design by Carlos Gimenez. Presented by Joseph Papp. The First New York International Festival of the Arts, New York, June 11 to July 11,1988

THE DEATH OF GARCIA LORCA by José Antonio Rial

Directed by Carlos Gimenez

Lighting design by Mr. Gimenez

Presented by Joseph Papp 

The First New York International Festival of the Arts
New York, June 11 to July 11,1988

Translated by Julio Marzan
Scenery and costume design by Rafael Reyeros

Associate producer, Jason Steven Cohen

At the Public/Anspacher Theater, 425 Lafayette Street.

 

WITH:

Mario Arrambide

Sara Erde,

Kevin Gray

Gonzalo Madurga

Joseph Palmas

Jorge Luis Ramos

Emilio Del Pozo

Cesar Evora

Margarita Irun

Roberto Medina

Tim Perez

Judith Roberts

Bernard White

Herbert Duarte

Patricia Falkenhain

Maria Cristina Lozada

Rene Moreno,

Lionel Pina

Al Rodriguez

Original Source: The New York Times

Photos: Marta Swope

Left to Right: Joseph Papp, José Antonio Rial, Carlos Giménez

Left to rigth: María Cristina Lozada,  Carlos Giménez, Margarita Irún,
César Evora,

Margarita Irún, Cesar Evora,

María Cristina Lozada.

Margarita Irún, María Cristina Lozada, José Antonio Rial.

"Eden is coming to the Apple. The Big Apple, that is. New York City will become a garden of original art this summer with performances of never-before- seen works gracing The First New York International Festival of the Arts.

The festival, which has been years in the planning, will bring together the world`s foremost performing artists for a monthlong celebration of 20th century creativity, June 11 to July 11. Much of what those artists present will be new to the city, the country or the world.

``We`ve tried to give a bird`s-eye view of the century,`` said Tony Rudel, the festival`s deputy director for music. ``It`s amazing what the world has done in 88 years.``

The festival, which has been years in the planning, will bring together the world`s foremost performing artists for a monthlong celebration of 20th century creativity, June 11 to July 11. Much of what those artists present will be new to the city, the country or the world.

 (...) Carlos Gimenez, artistic director of Venezuela`s Grupo Rajatabla, will stage The Death of Garcia Lorca with a cast of fellow Latin Americans."

By Caroly Jack
Sun-Sentinel
May 1, 1988

Photos

 Margarita Irún

 Rajatabla 20 años, de Blanca Sánchez y David Rojas